


A New Arrangement

by gaslightgallows (hearts_blood)



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Late Night Conversations, Living Together, M/M, One Shot, Post-Canon, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-05-16 06:02:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19312105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hearts_blood/pseuds/gaslightgallows
Summary: It began, as it always does, with Aziraphale trying to help.Aziraphale makes a suggestion and then Crowley counters with an unexpected one.





	A New Arrangement

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fire_Sign](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fire_Sign/gifts).



> For Firesign23, for the prompt “When I’m with you, I’m home.” Sickening domestic fluff because I know that's her jam. ♥
> 
> If you're over on Tumblr, please consider following me at [gaslightgallows.tumblr.com](https://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/) for more fic, reblogs about writing, and lots of randomness. 
> 
> I also write original fiction! You can find it at [aflinley.com](https://www.aflinley.com/).
> 
> Thank you for reading and especially for commenting. Comments are love. ♥

It began, as it always does, with Aziraphale trying to help. 

In this case, he had decided, after finally visiting Crowley’s flat on the evening following the Apocalypse That Wasn’t, that his best friend’s home was not very inviting. And as he was spending rather more time there lately, he wanted to do something about it.

It was just so... _clean_. Barely a speck of dust anywhere and almost no furniture, apart from an ornate chair and a desk in the front room and the altogether too-large bed that dominated most of the space in the bedroom. Almost no decoration, apart from the exquisite early _Mona Lisa_ that Crowley had bought from Leonardo da Vinci’s workshop. The flat’s kitchen was bare of everything except glasses and bottles, and a kettle and a few bits of novelty china that Aziraphale had brought to make himself tea and cocoa with, of an evening. 

(He always asked if Crowley wanted a cup, and Crowley always said yes. He never drank it, but he would have been hurt not to be asked.)

The plants were nice, of course, even if they did tend to tremble disturbingly whenever Crowley walked by, and Aziraphale had been very sternly told off from giving the plants any of what Crowley called “cossetting”. That was probably for the best; short of a miracle (and they were both trying to perform fewer of those, so has to stay unnoticed for as long as possible), he had never been very good with plants. 

The bedroom was Aziraphale’s favorite room in the flat by default, if only because it was the one place where Crowley could be convinced to be less than meticulous in his housekeeping. Clothes were usually strewn about the place and the bed was almost always unmade, and while Aziraphale was not one to champion the mistreatment of good clothing, somehow it did him good to see the evidence that Crowley actually did _live_ in the place he called his home. 

The opposite arrangement was rarely true – Crowley almost never slept the night at the bookshop, for the simple reason that there wasn’t anywhere for him to sleep, apart from the battered sofa in the back, and more often than not, Aziraphale was there at his desk, with the light on, working from dusk to dawn on whatever he liked. 

Crowley would often drop in unannounced, usually bringing lunch. He would loom until the customers left, hang about while Aziraphale ate, and then stay, sometimes, long after the shop had closed, lounging about and drinking until he practically slithered off the sofa, unable to maintain his human shape any longer, and then Aziraphale would find a very sleepy and very tipsy snake making its way up his leg to its accustomed resting place draped across the back of his neck. 

It was so very pleasant, decadently so, that after some time of these exchanged visits, Aziraphale began to feel a little guilty. 

“I was thinking,” he began, one evening when Crowley was not yet so relaxed that he defaulted to a snake, but relaxed enough to be sprawled over the sofa with his legs hanging over the arm and his head resting comfortably on Aziraphale’s thighs, “perhaps I ought to build a guest room.”

Crowley, who had been dangerously close to dozing, opened one eye. “What for?”

“Well, so you can have a place to sleep, of course. And a place to have a lie-in, when you want to. I do have to open the shop occasionally, and I always feel so rude waking you up and turning you out so that the customers can come in.”

“I don’t mind, angel. Couldn’t ask for a more heavenly wake-up call.”

Aziraphale smiled and ran his fingers through Crowley’s wild red hair. “I do my best, my dear. But I’d rather you felt comfortable here.”

The demon chuckled, deep and dark in his throat. “Do I not look comfortable?”

“You look positively and deliciously luxuriated, and I’d rather you got to stay that way for as long as possible.”

“Oh, well, in that case. Maybe we should just, y’know…” Crowley rolled a shoulder – not the one nestled against Aziraphale’s stomach – in a shrug. “Move in together.”

“Oh, I…oh,” Aziraphale sighed. A complex series of emotions flickered over his face, ranging from ecstasy to dismay, before he finally settled on anxious concern. “Do you really think it’s a good idea? I mean, well, I’m so awfully cluttered, compared to you. I like my books and my papers and my—”

“Chaos.”

“Structured messes.”

Crowley closed his eyes and relaxed further against Aziraphale. “It’s clutter, but go on.”

“There, you see? You’re just so… _tidy_. Frankly, it’s unnerving. And then what about non-essentials? I eat, you don’t, and you hate me messing about in your kitchen more than necessary.”

“Yes, because the one time I let you try to bake in there, you blew it up.”

“You also sleep and I don’t, and it gets awfully eerie and lonesome in your flat when I’m there by myself. And you hate it when I interfere with your plants,” he added, a little petulantly.

“Don’t worry about the plants; if they haven’t learned who’s boss yet, they will soon. As to the rest, we’ll have to figure it out as we go along. We’ve got time.”

“But we’ve finally found a little breathing space for ourselves. Are you sure you want to risk that by having me in your home?”

“The flat’s just a flat. If I need to move, I will. All I need to take with me is the plants. Home’s something else. Home’s where I don’t have to pretend.”

“That’s not entirely true – you’ve never once pretended around me.”

Crowley opened his eyes and looked at Aziraphale with an infernal, unblinking, fond expression. 

“…Oh!” Aziraphale said, and became very flustered. “Well, I-I suppose we could give... cohabiting... a _try_. One must, occasionally, keep up with the times. But what if it doesn’t work?”

“If it doesn’t work, then it doesn’t work. We go back to living separately and invading each other’s personal space in other ways.” Crowley smiled. “Either way, angel, it won’t be the end of the world.”

Aziraphale gave his demon a stern glare, but couldn’t quite manage to maintain it for long.


End file.
